Turtle Soup Anybody?

Turtle soup wasn't on the agenda for this afternoon's fishing excursion but as it turned out it could have been on the menu.

Unfortunately, for the past few weeks I had the mixed pleasure of working in Highlands, N.C.and was unable to get in any fishing, saltwater or otherwise.

Fishing in the cold mountain streams is for me more like fishing for bait, but that's another story.

My wife and I finally got to hit the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge today but the grass was at least a couple of feet high and made fishing most of the areas I enjoy an impossible task. 

Even if you could get in a cast and cast a fish, landing it would be almost an impossibility.

We did manage to wet a line in a couple spots with mixed results.

One of the areas I call Pelican Cove was fishable so we stopped while Karen dunked a frozen jumbo shrimp under a Cajun Thunder float and I started casting a top water Chug Bug around likely looking spots.

I had a couple followups on the Chug Bug but no solid hookups so I changed rods and started pitching a Fire Tiger paddle tail soft bait.

I saw a small pod of three or four nice redfish come around a point I was fishing but they weren't interested in my bait.

I followed them casting ahead of the wake they were making but still failed to hookup with anything.

About this time,  I heard Karen yelling that she had something big on her rig so I walked up to where she was fishing to help her out.

As I got closer, I realized that her "fish" was actually a large soft shell turtle.







I carefully went down the bank to pull the turtle out trying not to get nipped in the process and finally lobbed it onto the bank.

 





I got the camera and took several shots of the leatherback before clipping the line and returning it to the water.

I was halfway joking with Karen when I said turtle soup anybody but she didn't find much humor in it so I gave it a rest.

The sun was going down so we moved to another spot where I got a few taps from sea trout but again no solid hookups.

Karen, lost her Cajun Thunder rig so she switched rods to fish a shrimp on the bottom but lost it to a sea trout.

As the sun began to drop below the horizon, the mosquitoes  started coming out of the tall grass in mass and sucking blood mainly from me, so we decided to make our exit.

Karen emailed the Acting Supervisory Refuge Ranger about the overgrown grass in the refuge and apparently the subject was brought up in their supervisory meeting last week.  

The Acting Supervisory Ranger, Nancy Corona said that the area "should be mowed shortly", so hopefully we can get into areas to do some serious fishing again without the danger of getting run off the road.

Hopefully, next time I can relay a better fishing report.

Till next time, Turtle soup anybody and Tight Lines!